‘A Different World’ Review: Netflix College Comedy Takes a Beloved Classic Into a Lively New Era, With Charm and Smarts to Spare

In its first few episodes, Netflix’s A Different World does not quite live up to its title.

Sure, the Hillman College we first encountered in the 1980s looks different now, full of modern young people with their modern concerns and their modern fashions and their modern music (beginning with an updated opening theme by Brandy). But with so many familiar faces from the earlier A Different World onscreen, rehashing so much of their familiar dynamics, the new spinoff-sequel-reboot thing might appear upon first impression like more of the same.

It’s not until this A Different World begins to come out from under the shadow of its parent that it really starts to flourish — but then flourish it does, aided by an endearing young ensemble and smart, heartfelt storytelling. By the end of its first season, it not only cements itself as a worthwhile standard-bearer for its predecessor, but proves ready to leave a mark of its own.

As is typical for one of these many-decades-later brand extensions, our new protagonist is a literal descendant of the old protagonists. College freshman Deborah (pronounced Deh-BOH-rah, never “Debra,” and played by the irresistibly radiant Maleah Joi Moon) is the youngest daughter of Whitley (Jasmine Guy), now a cosmetics mogul, and Dwayne (Kadeem Hardison), now the school provost. She’s also something of the family’s black sheep, the well-meaning but impulsive one who can’t seem to stop getting into trouble.

Said trouble often though not always involves Shaquille (Cornell Young IV), a childhood friend turned serious NFL prospect and fellow Hillman freshman, who just so happens to be the son of Whitley and Dwayne’s college buddy Ron (Darryl M. Bell). Around these two families, creator Felicia Pride, along with returning director Debbie Allen, builds out a whole updated universe that’s rich with Hillman history at every turn: from the returning characters (among others, Cree Summer’s Freddie recurs as a professor), to the buildings named after non-returning characters (Vernon Gaines Library, Walter Oakes Stadium), to the dialogue referencing the decades-old exploits of all of the above.

This clear affection for the source material is simultaneously one of A Different World’s biggest draws and, at least initially, one of its more worrisome hurdles. On one hand, anyone who loved the original as much as Pride and Allen obviously do will surely relish catching up with old friends (between move-in day, homecoming and a funding crisis, the first three episodes offer no shortage of excuses for alumni to pop by) or diving into the poignant current drama with Dwayne and Whitley, who find themselves on the brink of divorce after over 30 years of marriage.

On the other, anyone less familiar with the original — including, presumably, most of the Gen Z target audience — may wonder why we’re lingering so long on middle-aged guest stars reminiscing about decades-old gossip. Especially when that time could be directed to a central ensemble bursting with more than enough charm, chemistry and appropriately youthful folly to generate plenty of tea on their own.

But much like a freshman settling into a new identity at a new school, A Different World benefits from a bit of patience. It’s around the fourth installment, a fun and frisky half-hour about the advent of cuffing season, that the show properly zeroes in on the younger characters, leaning on the sweet but star-crossed romances that are the show’s dramatic bread and butter — whether it’s the tumultuous history between Shaquille and Deborah, or the instant sparks between their roommates Kojo (Chibuiken Uche, adorable), an extroverted Ghanaian-Nigerian fashion major, and Rashida (Alijah Kai, even more adorable), an ambitious criminal justice major from Compton.

And it’s around the fifth episode, set during a finals week interrupted by a bomb scare, that A Different World really starts to fire on all cylinders. Like the earlier series, this one readily acknowledges how real-world horrors can puncture even a relative safe space like Hillman. It gives Freddie the opportunity to point out that HBCUs like it have always been under threat in America, “not just because of what students do but because of who you might become.” It grants Deborah the space to vent her frustration about the same in the moment, and revel in the community that got her through it in the aftermath.

But it also understands the way more mundane concerns can coexist even with such major crises. Deborah’s prim-and-proper buddy Hazel (Kennedi Reece) can pray that God leads the Hillmanites to safety and also that, once He has done so, He might consider moving them to vote for her in the dorm beauty pageant. Hazel’s bestie Amir (Jordan Aaron Hall) might as well take advantage of the lockdown to corner the guy who’s essentially ghosted him after a great night together. Life goes on, in all its quirks and intimacies and frivolities, no matter what horrors might lurk on the horizon.

For the rest of the season, the worst complaint I could muster about A Different World is really more a compliment in disguise: There simply isn’t enough of it. At just 10 half-hours, the season is over too soon after it hits its stride. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help wonder how many of the occasionally rushed-feeling plot points we do get would have benefited from a 20+ episode season, like its forerunner got. There would have been more room to let the romances simmer, to explore the nuances of each friendship, to flesh out some of the supporting characters.

As it is, A Different World still manages the trick of going from looking like an exercise in Xennial nostalgia to delivering a portrait of youth that feels at once fresh and timeless. Even its reverence for the old guard evolves from a distraction to a crucial element in the bigger picture it’s painting about the legacy of Hillman, as a place where the young minds of yesterday went to shape the world that nurtured the young minds of today, who will someday go on to shape the world for the young minds of tomorrow.

If that sounds like a lot to put on a comedy whose episodes are still mainly filled with college kids breaking up or making up or sneaking into clubs or sneaking back into their dorms after curfew, the show wears it easily — grounding bigger themes in intimate character work, balancing heavier emotions with bursts of lighthearted humor or displays of simple joy.

As Deborah ecstatically puts it after escaping a crisis: “We are studying, we are partying, and we are living our best young gifted Black talented lives right here in our space.” Maybe they aren’t doing all those things in exactly the way their moms and dads did once. But the new A Different World is doing things its own way, and is all the more winning for it.